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Hello,
This is my first time posting in a forum. I thought I'd give it a try.
I have an Eastman archtop guitar. It is a 2005 model, 810ce 17", solid maple body with spruce top. It is my first archtop guitar and I don't have much to compare it with. I find that the first two strings are really loud and steely sounding. I have to really be careful as they can sound quite jarring if I'm not really precise with my playing. They are not very forgiving.
I wanted to know if this is normal for archtop guitars? Is it because it is a 17" body and designed to cut through the sonic mix of a large band?
Is it a characteristic of Eastman archtop guitars?
Just reaching out to see if anyone has anything experienced to say about this.
James
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02-13-2026 04:50 PM
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Hi, James, and welcome! I would suggest posting this question in the "guitars, amps and gizmos" subforum which is exactly for this kind of question.
Right off the bat I have a couple of thoughts: first, you have an acoustic archtop guitar with a mini humbucker pickup. Both of those are prone to a bright tone, especially the pickup. In terms of tone, those sit somewhere between a PAF and a single coil.
My first question is whether there is both a volume and tone control on the guitar or is there only a volume control? If there is a tone control, what happens if you roll it off to send the high frequencies to ground?
My next question is what kind of amp are you using? If it is a Fender or Fender-style amp, then try rolling the treble control down to 0, the mid control up to 10 (if there is one), and the bass control down to 2 or less. The Fender tone stack cuts the mids and accentuates the highs and the lows; most jazz guitarists want a flat-ish EQ.
My advice is first try all the free and easy stuff before spending any money chasing a tone that you may or may not achieve. Twiddle the knobs, adjust the pole pieces, try different strings, try a different pick, etc. If there's no tone control, consider adding one. Many folks will say they never roll down the tone or only have a volume control and just adjust it at the amp, that has never worked for me. I went through more money buying amps and installing different pickups than I did buying my guitar in chasing the "jazz guitar" tone!
A thing to remember is that archtop guitars want to be bright. It's what the structure of the instrument is designed for, which makes the frequent obsession with a dark, warm, fat, woolly tone in these guitar a little odd. I had to adjust my expectations and tonal goals.
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Eastman's like the Benedetto's they are designed after tend to be bright.The things suggested in the post above are all worth trying.Going to a thicker pick may help.I have an AR910 which i love.I had Galli Jazz Tapes on it for awhile. They come with two kinds of b and e strings,steel and nylon coated.I used the nylon coated strings and they were definitely less bright sounding than the steel.
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I did not know that about the Galli strings. Learning something new every day is good!
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Back in the day, GHS sold tape wound strings under the D'Angelico brand and supplied both tape wound and metal E and B strings. I was glad they did as the tape wound high string broke pretty easily. I am glad to hear that Galli does that today.
To the OP: What strings are you using? It is important to match strings to the pickup. If a pickup is voiced for electric strings and you use acoustic strings, the E and B will be too hot. The converse is true as well. Changing strings might solve your problem.
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Acoustic tone or amplified tone or both ?
What do you compare with ?
Welcome
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I have the same guitar with a different pickup I installed. There is no reason it needs to be harsh. Your not likely to get that Wes tone from an Eastman but I personally dont like that dark of a tone. Just spend some time playing with your amps eq. It can have a beautiful voice. Also, is it set up properly? Dont be afraid to raise the strings a little with the thumb screws. You can always put it back. If it has fret buzz that and add an extra layer of brightness that isnt pretty. Otherwise, spend some quality time with the eq.
If its like most Eastmans the tone knob is really touchy. Turning it part way down does very little (but it does do some). Its that last quart inch that really starts digging into tone. Also try leaving the tone all the way up and roll back the volume a little. Lots of extra tone control lives in your volume knob.
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All of the above about volume and tone and amp controls are the easiest things to try first.
I would just say from my experience that I tried two of the top JS style pickups on the market for my floating pickup guitar, and not only found them too bright but also very difficult to balance the strings on.
Both problems were solved 100% by replacing the pickups with an Armstrong 12 pole floating pickup. Might be worth trying if all else fails. Good luck!
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Here's a Rich video in case you haven't seen it , sounds like we'd expect I guess... maybe the string gauges ??
Originally Posted by James Cosman
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I have a 7 string version of that guitar. I love it because of the clarity of line it can bring out in anything I play. In the interest of honesty, I was not fond of any of the electronics that came from Eastman; it's not their forté so I put in a Benedetto S-7 right from the start. That guitar became my favourite until I got my Jimmy D'Aquisto 7 string. I love them both... equally. Because they're both built in a category of new generation guitars that emphasizes clarity in the whole spectrum. This differs from the warmth of Gibson type guitars or John D'Angelico's warm horn-like voiced guitars.
There are several guitar builders that have taken the cue from Jimmy D'Aquisto. Mirabella, Montellone, to some extent Bob Benedetto... these X braced lighter carved and higher arched archtops are built for even definition, and honestly, some players take some time to get used to playing with them. Some just don't like them.
It's a matter of personal taste, what you have in your hands and what you hear in your own ear.
Try out the Eastman, try out an old Gibson like a vintage L-7 (or some Gibson acoustic; Johnny Smith or L-5), try out the Guild Artist Award, try out a good example of a Yunzhi and develop your own recognizable take on the guitar.
Then you'll find there's a guitar out there that makes you play like you've never played.
A good match takes a lot of work on your own part to recognize and realize.
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Thank you Cunamara for your response and your advice and experience. You make many good points. My guitar does not have a tone control. I have a Fender Princeton Chorus amp that sounds like it should be a good amp, but I don't like it. It is 145 watts that I don't need. I want a smaller amp. But actually I play unplugged most of the time and the e and b strings are wiry sounding when played acoustically. Mostly I am just learning to adjust to this and working on my playing technique. I am using thicker picks, which helps a lot.
I changed the original factory Kent Armstrong pick-up to a Lollar pick-up. It has adjustable poles and much more even sounding.
I think I am learning to accept that this guitar is bright, and that that is a good thing. I just am learning to play it still, and having spent so many years playing nylon guitars, (Classical and Flamenco) this guitar is quite different for me.
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Hello nyc chaz,
Thank you for your response. I never heard of Galli Jazz tapes before. I will look into them. Nylon coating sounds desirable.
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You've explained your observation right there. Compared to nylon strings, unwound steel sounds bright and steely. This is not a mystery - steel strings sound steely compared to nylon. Whether you'll get used to it and come to like it is the issue. Originally Posted by James Cosman
I strongly doubt that there's anything wrong at all. Like Jimmy, Blue Note, I have and love an 810CE7. Mine also has a tone control, and it's very effective. But you say that E1 and B sound wiry when playing acoustically. That's because they're wires - a tone control wouldn't change this.
You're hearing the right things, and your hearing is fine. A thicker, smoother pick softens the attack and tone. I use a Dunlop 204, but there are many "jazz picks" that sound smoother and less "chimey". The sharper the tip, the brighter the attack of each note will be. The more suddenly the string is released, the more high harmonics will be generated. This is how overdrive and distortion pedals generate distortion in amplifiers. They push the signal into clipping, which squeezes the normally rounded peaks of the waveform closer to a square or triangle wave, and the sharper transitions cause spurious high frequency harmonics. This happens mechanically too. Plucking closer to the bridge, where the string is stiffer, sounds brighter than picking close to the neck because the more sudden release of the string generates more high frequency harmonics and less fundamental.
Tape wound strings will definitely do less of this and sound more " nylon-y". They have lower tension than steel, and most are thicker than standard strings. But they feel odd to many of us, and to experience them properly, your guitar will probably need a fresh setup. The nut slots may well have to be widened to accommodate the increased thickness, which would mean needing a new nut and setup if you don't like them and go back to traditional strings. LaBella make good tape wound strings that come in standard gauge (12-56 IIRC), but that set has plain steel E1 and B (as does the 14-67 set).
I hope you reach equilibrium with your 810. But it will never sound like a nylon string guitar.
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I had an Eastman AR503 many years ago, I sold it when I bought an ES 175. Recently I was trying various archtops for playing acoustically in a store. They had an AR503 along with many vantage Gibson archtops. AR503, to my surprise, was less bright and warmer than acoustic L5's (also much cheaper). Of course it's still brighter than a flattop but not in a bad way. I bought it. It became my favorite practice guitar.
It is amazing how small things can change its acoustic tone dramatically. I tried different bridges that I had. I replaced the stock rosewood bridge with a tune-o-matic which to me makes the guitar sound very noticeably less dry and warmer (more overtones, less "susurrus" sound of fingers touching the high strings). I removed the pickguard as I do with all my archtops but that made the guitar brighter, believe it or not, so I put it back. My point is, you can tame the tone with small tweaks but it can be time consuming as the process is all trial and error.
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I have an Eastman AR403ce. I use TI Jazz Swing 13-53 flatwounds on it. It sounds good through almost any amp with the '10' on the volume control pointing straight up and the '8' on the tone control pointing straight up. It's too bright with the volume and tone controls all the way up no matter what the amp!
Last edited by Tom Karol; 02-15-2026 at 05:04 PM.
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This is why I sold my Eastman 810CE ultimately. Wonderful instrument at a great value!
I went with a thicker carved plate Archtop ala Gibson Johnny Smith.
And even then parallel braced carved Archtop with a mounted pickup,say an L-5CES will be darker still.
These are not inexpensive but the alternative to a laminate Archtop.
And if you are gigging a lot,probably a better choice overall.
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Yes, the guitar with steel strings is going to be inherently brighter than the brightest extra-hard tension nylon string guitar. Interesting that you're coming from the nylon string to the steel string direction, because I think in many cases the folks looking for the dark, warm jazz guitar sound would find that more naturally in nylon string instruments. But jazz guitar is visually identified with archtops rather than classical guitars. Originally Posted by James Cosman
If you haven't heard Gene Bertoncini you might appreciate him. He plays both steel string archtop (a D'Aquisto laminate body) and nylon string (Buscarino Cabaret or Grand Cabaret), more prominently known for the latter but he started with steel string. He had lessons with Johnny Smith as a teenager and later was studying with bebop guitarist Chuck Wayne, who played him a Julian Bream recording and that inspired Gene to take up the classical guitar in jazz. In a not-infrequent irony in jazz, on the nylon string especially he often sounds far more modern in his harmonies than many of the young, modern players. He's still playing, not with the accuracy he once had but he's 90, and interestingly has taken to comping using single lines.
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Thank you to everyone who has responded to my post. Collectively all these responses are validating my experiences with my archtop guitar.
I love my Eastman 810ce! I think it's beautiful and it has it's own distinctive sound, that I am simply learning to accept and work with. I also play a flattop acoustic guitar (Guild Om, Mahogany and spruce, from 2015) which is a very warm and responsive guitar. I use it for finger style folk music.
But for swing style jazz chording and strumming, and meandering around the fretboard in my jazz learning, I prefer and like the archtop guitar.
I just haven't found my balance with the tonal dynamics yet.
James
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If it makes you feel any better, I was listening to Julian Lage's new album today, and you can easily hear when he goes from a wound lower to an unwound top string. So the issue even exists for him, but somehow he makes it work. Originally Posted by James Cosman
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Try Martin Retro Monel strings, D,andrea pro plec picks and anything but a Fender black/silver amp. I believe the amo you have is super bright and harsh. Pay great attention to the acoustic properties because if a guitar is really brighter (or darker) than you like before you plug it in, you can waste a lot of money and time on a guitar that just isn't right for you.
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Thank you for this Bluejaybill! I listen to Julian Lage, and will check this out for sure!
James
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Thank you! I will look into these strings (Martin Retro Monel). It is getting harder to try out different amps as our retailers are disappearing and all the choices I have heard about are only available on line, or at least not here in Toronto.
Henricksen, DV Mark, AER, no one is selling these in Toronto.
It's ok. I'm not in a hurry.
Thank you,
James
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I dont know how much experience you had previously with arcthops, but no one of them are warm sounding acoustically, more or less they are all very steely, even very expensive ones are very bright. And laminated are very "stringy" and hollow. Also wooden bridge dont sound too warm to me, i prefer tune o matics.
I also come from classical guitars.
They key is amplified tone, Fender amps has a dip in 650hz (5,5,5 eq settings) which helps them being bright, so you might try boosting the mids on it, not only cutting highs.
Also you can try goin for a Polytone style amp, or changing the pickup for a full humbucker floater. I never like mini humbuckers no matter which guitar i use.
I prefer set full humbuckers for jazz tone.
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Thank you for your feedback Gustavo. I bought this guitar during the pandemic shutdown, when we could only purchase online, and not go into stores. So I couldn't try out other options. It was second hand on consignment, and at about half the price. I did a lot of research and concluded it was a good choice. And I do really like it, love it. It's just so much brighter than anything I've been used to. I was looking to see what experiences other people had.
Before the shutdown I did try a fully laminated archtop guitar but I found it dead without any personality. This Eastman is definitely alive!
I suspect that if I were to find myself playing in a full big band where I had to compete with the other instruments and "cut through" the mix, that my guitar would discover its meaning in life! LOL!
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Maybe try finger/thumb picking if aiming for a more rounded acoustic sound. You wouldnt be the first jazzer to go that way.
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